1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for distilling water from raw water or the like which is treated by passage through an ion exchange or reverse osmosis membrane, and more particularly to a system for distilling water suitable for use in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing, electronics industry, medical supply production, medical treatment and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has been known to distil water of high purity by making vapor pass through a hydrophobic porous membrane as disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2-63592.
In the prior art described above, in which the vapor is generated by heating raw water as it is and is condensed into condensate, the vapor may be contaminated by impurities including corpuscles, dissolved gas and total organic carbon (TOC) in the raw water as well as water mist. Accordingly, when the vapor is condensed by cooling, these impurities contaminate the distilled water to thereby deteriorate the purity thereof.
Furthermore, since the generated vapor is condensed to afford the latent heat of vaporization to a coolant and not reused, the efficiently is low and it is still required to provide a subsidiary equipment for serving to supply the coolant.
Moreover, in the plant designed to transfer the produced distilled water by means of a pump, there is a disadvantage that the corpuscles or organic material resulting from a sliding portion of the pump deteriorate the water composition chemistry.
In addition, there is another disadvantage that impurities dissolved from the various structural elements making up the distillation system contaminate the produced vapor and distilled water, thereby making it impossible to obtain the distilled water of high purity required for the use in semiconductor manufacturing and other like.
An object of the present invention is to provide a distillation system capable of distilling water of very high purity which is suitable for use in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing, electronics industry, medical supply production, medical treatment and the like.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a distillation system which is capable of lessening dissolution of impurities from the structural elements making up the system thereby producing distilled water of high purity.